One of my best friends is my coffee pot. I hesitate to mention this, because it might suggest that my social life is pathetic, which it is, but I don’t want anyone signing me up for Tinder.

Two days ago, my faithful coffee pot and I faced a near catastrophe in our kitchen. This may not come as any surprise to you. In any household occupied by Octo-woman, the kitchen is the room where fires, smoke inhalation, explosions, food-poisonings, floods, first degree burns, electrical shock, and other food emergencies are most likely to occur. Everybody seems to know that.

This time though, it really wasn’t my fault. I was entirely an innocent victim of the event.

Every night, I set up the electric coffee pot to start brewing in the a.m. as soon as Alexa gives it a virtual punch. (She tends to be very bossy.) 

Next morning, still semi-conscious but kind of awake, I lunged myself out of bed, grunted at Alexa to start the coffee pot out in the kitchen, and then got dressed. Getting all dolled up in my long underwear, sweatshirt, baggy pants, Reeboks, do-rag, and my hearing aids, usually takes 12 minutes – about as long as it takes for the coffee pot’s red Ready light to come on. Staggered into the kitchen for the first of my two nice morning cups of joe. Poured it into the cup. And found a cup – of piping hot water. Gasp! 

I looked in at the basket of coffee grounds. Completely dry! Obviously, the  coffee pot had become incompetent, incapacitated and possibly – yes – near death.

Time for crisis mode! How could I go on without my caffeine jolt? And what could have happened? Was it the full moon? Am I being punished because I’ve been missing Mass on Sundays? And who should I call for emergency services? 911? Facebook? Jack Reacher?

No. I knew I had to take immediate action myself.  I couldn’t wait for James Bond (spoiler alert), him now being dead.

If there was ever a time for effective crisis management, this was it. I will detail my plan of action below as a public service. 

That will have to wait a moment though, because it may be necessary to get you better acquainted with my troubled but trusty coffee pot. It has the magical name of “Presto” and though I have never observed it’s supernatural capabilities, I remain in awe of its normally delicious, dependable and economical coffee-making. 

The Presto – an electric percolator –  was first produced in 1954 and – thanks to its dedicated fan base – has remained in production ever since with 4+ star reviews – for the past 68 years. You can find it on amazon.com today for $59. Discerning addicts like me keep buying it so it must be doing something right when it comes to delivering a caffeine fix.

 What has – unfairly, in my view- tarnished its percolator popularity, was what the “Madmen” like Don Draper of Madison Avenue did to it in the 1970s. 

During the 70’s, those clever snake-oil salesmen managed to convince the world that drip – not – percolated – coffee was the be-all and end-all for the perfect cup of Java. They managed to sell millions of drip coffeemakers to starry-eyed pushovers like me, – along with a WHOLE lot more coffee. I used to use nearly twice as much coffee to brew a cup in a drip vs. a percolator pot. Today, you’ll find recommendations to use up to 2 tablespoons of fine grind to brew one cup in a drip coffeemaker vs.1 tablespoon of coarser grind in a percolator. Ka-Ching!

Okay, I understand. What about The Taste? Yes, coffee drinkers are stubborn about what they want the stuff to taste like. Me, I like the comforting flavor of the percolated brew. The Drips claim that the Perks’ coffee has a more robust flavor, but that it suffers from over-brewing. It can’t over-brew in an electric pot though, so I’m fine with it. And I’m used to the Presto version of my favorite drink. You might not like it, though. You just have to get used to it. Rest assured that you can get used to hanging if you hang long enough.

As has  been observed, there’s no accounting for taste. For example, unlike most of the world, I’m not a Starbuck’s fan. I think their French Roast coffee is delicious when brewed in my Presto percolator, but when I taste it steam-brewed in one of their bistros, I think I’m drinking battery acid. I mean, I like coffee but I don’t want use it to grow hair on my chest. So I just save their pricey French Roast to brew at home in the percolator for days when Queen Elizabeth or the Archbishop may be dropping by for lunch.

The rest of the time, the coffee I buy for the percolator is Costco’s Kirkland Colombian coffee (in the brown can) and it only comes in a fine grind. Percolators supposedly do better with a coarser grind but I like the taste of the Costco brand (and the price is sort of right, especially when on sale), so I get around the fine-grind problem by filtering it. I’m too old-fangled and stingy to buy paper filters though. I just pull out a stack of about 12 paper towels, cut the stack in 4 quarters, store them in a Glad bag, and pull out one little square each time I make a fresh pot, tearing a tiny slit in the middle to fit in the percolator’s basket. I get some of the grind filtering through, but as far as I know, it hasn’t killed me yet.

I always use glass coffee cups like this one (from Dollar Tree) because I like seeing how clear and enticing the brewed coffee looks, and so I can see when it’s time to get another “shot”. Alexa still hasn’t actually figured out how to keep the cup filled. I’m trying to be patient with her.

Yet another advantage of my 12 cup percolator is how little space it needs on the kitchen counter. It always looks nice and tidy and unassuming – unlike some of the monster coffeemakers I’ve used that hog the space I was saving for dirty dishes and stale bread.

I’m sure you have been trembling with anticipation to learn how I resolved the crisis facing me and my percolator in our time of crisis this week. Here’s my action plan, step by step. You might want to take notes.

1. As soon as I semi-recovered from the shock of the percolator’s failure, I reached for the Nescafé Taster’s Choice Instant Coffee, a product which when drowned in boiling hot water, can deliver a jolt of caffeine while pretending to taste like something that reminds you of coffee.

2.   Following the infusion of instant caffeine, I was able to call upon Octo-woman’s superhuman powers of observation and deduced that (a) the Presto percolator wasn’t able to operate properly, and (b) in order to avoid another morning without caffeine, I would need a replacement, or (c)  I would need to rejuvenate my hobbled percolator back to its previous gurgling glory.

Since my previous Prestos tended to keep happily percolating for several years, I decided that my multiple choice selection should be (c). I would aim for the glory of rejuvenation vs. replacement. 

3.  I took off the lid and looked inside. Almost instantly, after assessing the cruddy build-up inside, it dawned on me. What if I were to – yes, that’s It! –  – wash out the insides? But not just a minor scrub. I filled it with water with a little Clorox mixed in it, Soaked the pot overnight and by morning the insides were sparkling clean – all except the little aluminum well that the basket’s tube fits in. It took some scraping. That feature is the Presto’s only weakness!  I wish that little well was stainless steel like the rest of the pot but you can’t have everything in this life. Following a good rinse, I let the pot perk a couple of full pots of clear water to remove all the Clorox and it seemed to remember how to percolate perfectly. At least with the plain water.

4.  Finally brewed the first pot of real coffee and it was delicious. The caffeine catastrophe was averted, and my faithful percolator and I are still best friends.

It was just another day of intense drama in our eventful lives here at the exciting Kartar Ridge Ranch. Now, how about a nice, hot, flavorful cup of coffee?Ahhhhh!

In case you’d like to get to know my little friend better, here are its name, rank and serial number on amazon.com.